晚清科学小说:急进的启蒙

The Radical Cultural Mentality in Science Fictions of Late-Qing Dynasty

科学小说在时代焦虑的驱动下,文学上的准备尚不成熟,就已经承载了过多的启蒙功能,两相矛盾之下,造成了这一文类的硬伤。晚清文人少有人经历过专业的科学训练,过分强调启蒙的急进心态驱使下,科学小说如同一个被撑大变形的口袋,扭曲着呈现在读者面前。而通过对种种扭曲的文本现象进行深入挖掘,我们得以对科学的真正处境有更深了解。晚清科学小说反映出后世唯科学主义的源头实际在科学文化传入的晚清即已显出端倪,这一系列文化心态的错位并未随着历史的推移而消失,而是在日益汹涌的科技大潮中越发明显,通过对晚清科学小说诸多倾向的细致追溯,能够使我们对当下的科学文化心态有更深刻的反思。

The radical sentiment of enlightenment and the inertia of traditional culture constitute the two poles of the cultural mentality in scientific fictions of late Qing.The former attitude represents the forward momentum while the latter implies the backward nostalgia.Those two mutually restrictive elements contribute to the textual complexity of scientific fictions in late Qing Dynasty.This paper,by focusing on the cultural mentality in scientific fictions,tries to get a deeper understanding of the writings through detailed content analysis instead of the synoptic research in general.Fostered by the radical trend of enlightenment,these scientific fictions came into being in answer to the call of Zeitgeist.However,haphazard combination of science and literature became the fatal weakness of the texts.The Chinese intellectuals impatient zeal for enlightenment also leads to their overestimation and blind optimism toward science,thus distorting the objective nature of science.The negative influence of scientism in the following decades may have originated from such distorted understanding of science and culture,which is a character of the scientific fiction of this time.